The Empire of Russia eBook

The lords at Moscow had no faith in these words, and
were persuaded that he was a spy sent by their enemy,
the King of Poland. Though they watched him narrowly,
he was not incommoded, and left the kingdom after
having satisfied his desire to see all that was remarkable.
His report to the German emperor was such that, two
years after, he returned, in the quality of an embassador
from Frederic III., with a letter to Ivan III., dated
Ulm, December 26th, 1488. The nobles now received
Poppel with great cordiality. He said to them:

“After having left Russia, I went to find the
emperor and the princes of Germany at Nuremburg.
I spent a long time giving them information respecting
your country and the grand prince. I corrected
the false impression, conceived by them, that Ivan
III. was but the vassal of Casimir, King of Poland.
‘That is impossible,’ I said to them.
’The monarch of Moscow is much more powerful
and much richer than the King of Poland. His
estates are immense, his people numerous, his wisdom
extraordinary.’ All the court listened to
me with astonishment, and especially the emperor himself,
who often invited me to dine, and passed hours with
me conversing upon Russia. At length, the emperor,
desiring to enter into an alliance with the grand prince,
has sent me to the court of your majesty as his embassador.”

He then solicited, in the name of Frederic III., the
hand of Ivan’s daughter, Helen, for the nephew
of the emperor, Albert, margrave of Baden. The
proposition for the marriage of the daughter of the
grand prince with a mere margrave was coldly received.
Ivan, however, sent an embassador to Germany with
the following instructions:

“Should the emperor ask if the grand prince
will consent to the marriage of his daughter with
the margrave of Baden, reply that such an alliance
is not worthy of the grandeur of the Russian monarch,
brother of the ancient emperors of Greece, who, in
establishing themselves at Constantinople, ceded the
city of Rome to the popes. Leave the emperor,
however, to see that there is some hope of success
should he desire one of our princesses for his son,
the King Maximilian.”

The Russian embassador was received in Germany with
the most flattering attentions, even being conducted
to a seat upon the throne by the side of the emperor.
It is said that Maximilian, who was then a widower,
wished to marry Helen, the daughter of the grand prince,
but he wished, very naturally, first to see her through
the eyes of his embassador, and to ascertain the amount
of her dowry. To this request a polite refusal
was returned.

“How could one suppose,” writes the Russian
historian Karamsin, “that an illustrious monarch
and a princess, his daughter, could consent to the
affront of submitting the princess to the judgment
of a foreign minister, who might declare her unworthy
of his master?”